epidemiology | EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

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EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

The scene that greets you after the mist of world hopping fades isn’t a pretty one. You may remember Oska from your first, brief trip here — it was a stately, serene place, a grand castle usually wreathed in low lying clouds or gently sunny. Not so today. The damage done to Chantes by the demons and chimeras pales in comparison to what has been done to Oska.

Only one tower of the formerly impressive castle stands upright, the others have been knocked down and torn to rubble, some of which is still smoldering or in flickering flames. Most of the castle has been flattened, entire rooms torn apart and laid to waste. No exterior wall is without gaping holes, as if some army and their immense battering ram had needed a whole collection of entrances to storm this castle. Nothing is untouched, and worst of all, the underground larder seems to have been completely buried in a fall of rocks from the kitchen’s exterior wall. Even if you were able to dig it up, it’s dubious much of the food is unspoiled or intact.

If there is any up side to all of this destruction, it’s that no bodies can be found amid the mess, human or otherwise. Even the livestock are missing. Personal effects can be dug out of the ruins, and it seems very clear that this castle was populated until recently. There remains not one soul to tell what happened, though.

Well, almost not one soul.

The network that usually connects the jewelry is completely nonfunctional. Attempting to access it only brings up one static message, repeating for as long as you care to listen to it:

Something [ SHHKT ] --rrible has happ-- [ The message cuts out frequently, replaced with static. ] The-- [ shhhhhhkt ] came, they destroyed everything and n--

[ The static fades slightly. ]

We’re trapped. You’re on your own. But please, we ne-- [ shhkt ] your help. They’re still here. There’s worse to come. But when you [ SHKT ] --ind them, you can’t kill them. They need to be questioned. We mus-- [ shhhhkt ] know their motivations.

Some of the new recruits… they’re in the dungeons. You need to he-- [ shkt ] them, please. They can still be saved.

SURVIVAL

The dungeons are, of course, the only part of the castle left intact enough to present a challenge to escape. Some newcomers will find themselves lost in a labyrinth of cell-lined corridors, able to wander for hours before stumbling across any hint of daylight. How that’s even possible with most of the castle destroyed is anyone’s guess. Other newcomers might even be locked into the cells, with keys left nearby but just out of reach — or not. Better hope some sort of escape artist happens across you, if you’re one of those unlucky arrivals.

Food isn’t going to be easy to come across. You might try digging out the larder, but not much food can be salvaged from it. Are you going to put in the work to dig up a single shelf of intact loaves of bread, a cold roast chicken locked in a wood stove, and one barrel of apples? Maybe you try scavenging in the small, abandoned village outside the castle. This will uncover some food, but not much. Most of the food out there is either rotted through or missing entirely. You might find enough to last one person two days on your own, but who knows how long you’ll need it to last?

Wherever you find your food, if you find your food, rationing is highly recommended. Water isn’t so simple to find, either. There is a lake not far outside the castle walls, but the water in it tastes rancid, a sign to any right-thinking person that it’s no good to drink. Anyone brave or stupid enough to push through the taste and drink it anyway will find there aren’t actually any adverse effects, but is it worth the risk? Water can otherwise be found in very small amounts, collected by rainfall in buckets, on indented stones, in mislaid pots. It won’t be much, but if you search diligently it’s enough to keep you going.

Shelter will be a little easier to find… at least, at first. No one is using any of the beds in the village, they’re free to pick from as long as you don’t mind the eerie silence. If your character is particularly awful at scavenging, please see the end of this post.

HELL WEEK

Survival aside, that still leaves the question: just what did happen here? Characters are welcome to dig through the ruins for hints at what fate may have befallen Oska. We have provided a thread here to sign up to find belongings or other little signs of life, and try to piece together the picture. But what about that culprit, mentioned in the broadcast? Some characters will be able to stumble across very, very specific clues — riddles and puzzles, purposefully laid to guide the finders toward… something. Who knows what lies at the end of this oddly deliberate trail? You can sign up to find and solve the puzzles here.

Day one in Oska is easy enough to survive, an almost peaceful acclimation to the dismal scene. Things get a little bit tougher from there, though.

On day two the ground begins to shake. It’s just little tremors at first, easy to miss if you’re not standing still. But by mid morning they’re large quakes, enough to break some structures further. The quakes continue through the night and into day three, when they are large and severe enough to throw someone off their feet, tear apart a house, and even open wide chasms in the ground. They come with unpredictable frequency, anything between five minutes to three hours, but they definitely come more closely together as time passes. The village is safer at this point, without quite so many stones to shift and crush you, although those chasms are still a concern.

Come the evening of day three, the quakes stop entirely. A soft rainfall begins to patter down instead — still thirsty? Now is your chance to find some battered coffee tin and gather your drink. The rainfall continues steadily overnight, and by the morning of the fourth day it is a torrential downpour. It never lets up, not even once, and soon the water is more than the ground can handle. Flooding begins at this point, just a few inches deep in some places, more formidable in others. This also lasts for two days, and by the end of the fifth day in Oska most of the village is washed out. You’ll have better luck among the sturdy stones of the castle. Remember that still-standing castle tower? It’s not exactly the most structurally sound thing, but it is definitely out of the water.

The water stops very suddenly at sundown on the fifth day, affording a pretty peaceful, clear night. Come dawn of the sixth day, however, heavy clouds move to obscure the sunrise. They seem to flame around the edges in the light of it, and then in the middles. That’s clearly not sunlight lighting up those clouds by this point. The clouds flash from within as they build more and more heavily, but no lightning has ever been that flickering golden color. At midmorning the first drops begin to fall: not rain this time, but liquid fire. By noon the firestorm is at full strength. It swings between sheets of fire pelting down, and clearing up only to pelt down great fireballs. The rain-drenched village and castle can only fend off the rain for so long. Eventually the water evaporates and anything that can burn will burn. Time your ventures out into the weather very carefully, because the firefall never lets up for long, and that’s the kind of downpour you don’t want to be caught in.

OOC INFO

Is your character awful at survival? Can’t scavenge to save their life, completely out of food and water and about to expire? Wherever they fall asleep, they’ll wake up with a small, inexplicable wrapped bundle left next to their head. Within will be a half an apple, a single leg of chicken, and a very small canteen of water.

~~This log will last for one week, and there will be new information available on the 17th~~. As per our informal poll, this log will last ICly for one week, and OOCly for two. There will be new information available on the 24th. What the setting will be from here will depend on characters' ability to work together to catch whoever is responsible for these events.

You can sign up to find hints about the people who lived here and what may have happened to them here, and puzzles left by the perpetrator leading to the discovery of them on this post. Please direct any questions here.

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Anakin--

[Look, he gets it: it's a great feeling having control-- he was just as bad with Phasma on the other end of his blaster-- but Ren, tearful and shaking or not, is dangerous. They're tempting fate with every spent second, and it's an itch at the back of his neck he can't shake. Takes one careful step closer, if only to get back into Skywalker's eyeline.]

We need to go.

[Take his saber, punch him in the face-- whatever he wants to do? Finn figures they should do it and leave if death is off the table.]

You know nothing of me. Even less than you know yourself.

[Its said through gritted teeth, mirroring the volume Anakin attempts to impart on him, a sound of frustration rather than insult. All he can think of is how wrong all of his is -- but he sits, and he breathes carefully, remembering what little of his Jedi training that he retains. Meditation. Calm. The tools of the Dark Side were not always the tools to use.

He exhales through his nose, flicks too-young eyes up in Anakin's direction to match the intensity of his stare. The moisture on his face is drying quickly, even if the angrily cauterized wound continues to sizzle on his skin.]

That is why you don't.

[He almost thinks to bark at FN-2187 for daring to address Anakin as anything other than "Master" or "General", but he's already dug a deep enough hole for himself. Snapping at the injured trooper would only insight more ire from the Jedi, even if he's infuriated by his lack of respect. So much for being trained better than that, huh Finn?]

I told you before that I would not fight you over this cretin. My word remains true. So what else do you want, Master Skywalker?

[ a hand comes up, two fingers raised — not yet — in answer to finn's reminder. anakin's eyes do not drop from kylo ren's face. dooku had been a fossil; ventress looked diseased. kylo ren looks like—a human. without the mask, in lighter robes, he could have passed for a jedi but for the stench of the dark side that billowing around him like a cloud. anakin doesn't like the implication. ]

You want me to believe you? [ anakin doesn't raise his voice because he doesn't have to. his tone is that of a man used to being listened to, and more accustomed to being obeyed.

the force crackles between them to the soft sizzling of his lightsaber. sinking to one knee, lightsaber held across him as a reminder, anakin searches his face. his own is wiped clean to the point of being unreadable except by those who know him best: the ones who knew him before the war, before ventress burned his face, before the war robbed him of easy smiles and aged him six years in three. ]

Tell me who else you've encountered.

[ the easy assumption is that he asks about other jedi. the dark side obscures their vision. perhaps there is another, though anakin doubts it. if there was, it would be one faint, easily overlooked. not the steady bright sunlight of his master, which is the only he continues to search for and swallows the bitterness when obi-wan simply isn't there.

but it stands to reason that if kylo ren knows finn — hates him enough to seek him out specifically — he would know finn's companions and, if he discovered them, would have sought them too. anakin keeps the names to himself; if they are and have somehow managed to avoid detection, he doesn't want to throw them into the crosshairs of a furious and humiliated sith. ]

[Ren sneers directly back at the impassiveness with which is is addressed. The idea that he isn't being taken seriously burns somewhere at the forefront of his paranoid mind.]

None of your associates.

[He doesn't even bother to think that he might be asking after other Sith. He is the last outside of the Supreme Leader, and the latter was so shrouded and hidden that he barely qualified outside of a figurehead.

He has no desire to further alienate himself by lying when Anakin sits at his level. He would know of any deception instantly.]

One other: a Resistance pilot by the name of Poe Dameron. If he even still lives.

[When he says it, his eyes move pointedly (and coldly) to Finn. He lives -- Ren knows he does, had made certain that the wounds he he inflicted wouldn't kill him quickly. Someone should have found him...unless they hadn't. But ultimately, he doesn't care. He thinks of the girl -- that bloody girl. But he couldn't assume her presence especially when he had not felt her nearby. Anakin's own aura far outshined any others.

Distracted, his eyes drop to the hilt of Anakin's lightsaber. How cruel, to have it so close and so unobtainable.]

Several others. None I was previously familiar with. Does that suffice?

Edited 2016-02-23 03:20 (UTC)

You son of a--

[He knows. He knows Ren is digging for him-- that he could be lying just to get under his skin, but there's something about the look that comes with it that promises he's not. And it's everything Finn's been afraid of since waking, that he wouldn't be there when they needed him-- when Ren came stalking up all sickening, focused fury-- so for that, for literally everything else that's been done, it's a cold, hard snap that hits Finn's expression. Has him ignoring every hateful nerve in his body screaming out in protest when he rushes in close, left arm reeled back and cocked for the hard slam of his fist that follows.

He's aiming for bone, for teeth, for anything capable of cracking on impact and more than ready to follow up as soon as he gets so much as a sliver of a shot.

Choke on it, Kylo Ren. And be damn glad he doesn't have a weapon in his hand.]

[Perhaps if he hadn't been staring at Finn, baiting that specific reaction, his punch may have connected. But unfortunately, Ren is more than prepared for the assault, and Anakin's lightsaber is not enough of a deterrent to keep him from reacting -- but he is smart enough to wait until the last possible moment, when Anakin is likely already turning to stop Finn from making the mistake he's committed to.

A leather wrapped hand, the one that isn't holding his dormant lightsaber, comes up to stop the Stormtrooper in his tracks. He could throw him backwards, damage those horrific burns he had been left with from who knew where -- but instead, he clenches his fingers slightly to start the process of choking him. Its a brief reminder that he is but a child among gods, and that he lives only by their mercy.]

I have already shown you mercy today. [Because he was forced, but only a little.] Do not think to tempt me, traitorous scum.

[ for fuck's sake, mate.

anakin realizes the mistake the moment finn starts his insult. exactly the thing he had been trying to avoid by telling him to settle back easy is exactly the trap into which finn runs headlong. the hypocrisy of his censure does not yet occur to him, nor will it.

on his feet, throwing an arm out to keep finn back, but kylo ren reaches him first. anakin does not think. his actions are instinctive: a hand thrown out, a focused blast to throw kylo ren back, and the flexion of his fingers tightening the force around his throat before he falls. anakin does not hold the gesture long, only enough to break ren's focus, enough to hear finn breathe.

he seizes finn above the elbow in case he's going to fall. whatever guilt had stayed his hand before is no longer present; everything in him screams to jump after ren, take an arm this time, both. anakin plans to once he makes sure finn will, for the first time in the past ten minutes, stay. ]

[He's breathing through his teeth to keep his own feet under him without Anakin's help - hands shaking, hatred so palpable it's practically bleeding from him as he heaves, stare still narrowed and focused on Ren. When he talks, he's not looking at Anakin-- he's not looking anywhere else, voice so hoarse it's as gritted as coarse gravel: ] He deserves it--

[Death, pain, anything and everything in between, it doesn't matter; he doesn't care.] You don't know-- you don't know what it was like--

He deserves it.

[Being pushed away from Anakin is painful, but he had already reopened the wound when he had raised his arm to choke him. So he rolls with the push and ends it on all fours in order to lift himself into a standing position. From there, he stays still in order to inspect the blood beginning to soak his tunic with an exhale through his nose.

There's no retort or argument that comes to his defense while Finn hisses and spits in his direction. Kylo Ren's stare is impassive in the face of the other man's rage now that there is distance between them once more. Sure, he's done terrible things -- but it was all for a good reason, as far as Ren was concerned. Why argue?

As far as Ren is concerned, the relentlessness of the Clone Wars and their skirmishes were far more devastating than anything the First Order had ever done. At least the First Order was quick and effective with their attacks -- no room for error, no drawn out munitions, coordinated strike attacks.

He would take General Hux over General Grievous any day.]

Think, [ anakin hisses at finn, fingers still wrapped tight around the other's arm. somewhere on coruscant, obi-wan just dropped whatever he was holding. ] If he's so badly injured, would you rather help him or stay here?

[ were finn not so terribly injured, anakin would have pushed him to the stairs long ago while he remained to deal with ren. not only is he hurt, in the short time they have been acquainted, finn has proven to have a worse sense of self-preservation than any jedi. anakin has his doubts that finn will be of help to anyone even if he does find his friend.

the fingers around his lightsaber tighten until the electric feedback almost resembles pain. anakin releases a frustrated exhale between gritted teeth. nothing about this is working out as it should. eyes narrowed, still holding onto finn in case he decides to charge kylo ren again, he returns his full attention to the now-silent nuisance. ]

Where did you leave him?

[It's a cold, sullen glower that comes back to meet Anakin. He hates it-- having to sit back and do nothing, having the Jedi's arm latched tightly onto his own.

First Han, then Rey, then Poe...it's a needling kind of pain he doesn't know how to combat. Rolls back around to Slip's tacky fingers and all the circling fear that came with it. He stays put, following the tug of Anakin's fingers only because there's a chance Poe might still be alive. That's it. That's all he's got left with the memory of Rey's scream in his ears, or the way Han buckled when he fell.

That, and the fact that Ren's obviously bleeding.]

[For a few seconds, it seems like Ren might keep his lips sealed as his eyes close -- but in reality, he is reaching out with the Force. Poe Dameron's life force is not so familiar that he would be able to locate him instantly, but he's encountered him enough now that he knows what he feels like. His head tips in one direction as he feels a familiar brush.

But he doesn't hold out the search for long -- even if Anakin knows what he is doing, he can feel his anger easily with the space between them.]

The dungeons, where we woke together.

[His eyes slide open almost lazily. The aim hadn't been to kill Dameron. At the time, he had thought him his only doorway -- now he sees there are others, as well as a much more important mission at hand.]

He is still alive.

[ of course, that's where he would be. the place they only just got out of in order to have to return. there is no trace of a lie. not one anakin can detect. having to take ren on his word is galling, but what other choice does he have? someone's hurt, possibly dying. he cannot not act.

a second longer, he glares in kylo ren's direction. anakin landed a blow, beat him in combat. but simply leaving feels like admitting a loss. his grip around finn's arm changes to a nonverbal urging. ]

I'll cover you. [ only after finn starts to move does anakin follow, a step behind and more tempted to stay. were kylo ren intelligent, he would hope they did not cross paths again. that they will ( to end this, one way or another ) is cold comfort. ]

[The question to his intelligence would no doubt be answered another day. He doesn't pursue, though its clear some part of him wants to -- likely not for the reasons either one of the other men may believe.

Instead, he clips the lightsaber back onto his belt and holds his helmet in both hands as he addresses the Jedi across from him.]

We will meet again, Master Skywalker. Preferably without the lost soul clinging to your robes, and without other interruptions. Perhaps I will be able to answer your questions more thoroughly then.

[And he will not turn away before they disappear back around the corner.]

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EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

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